Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Frozen Cucumber and Iced Parmesan.

I don’t know if you have ever found a frozen cucumber in the depths
of your refrigerator, thanks to a thermostat malfunction. It is not nice. A
crisp salad ingredient has become a messy disposal problem. I never thought I
would find a recipe for frozen cucumber, but here it is, from The Complete Cook Book (Philadelphia, 1900), by Jennie Day Reese. Your
refrigerator disaster might just do for the filling in this dish.

Frozen Cucumber Salad - Original.

Take six large green
cucumbers, cut a slice lengthwise from each one, and with a silver teaspoon or
your fingers remove the seeds and pulp, and throw the hulls in cold water until
ready to use. Peel and chop coarsely two whole cucumbers, add to them the seeds
and pulp of the other six and let it stand in salted ice water one hour.
Cucumbers should have a thick peeling taken off of them, as they are bitter
near the skin.

Now drain the water from
them, add two tablespoonfuls of chopped chives, one teaspoonful of grated
onion, two tablespoonfuls of chopped celery, one tablespoonful of Durkee's
dressing, one cup of mayonnaise salt and tabasco sauce to taste. Color with
spinach green and freeze. When frozen stuff the cucumber hulls with it, place
them on fresh crisp lettuce leaves and serve at once. It should be a light
green when frozen. This is new and beautiful as well as good.

Another recipe in the book mentions the recent (for then) fashion
for iced suppers. They soundlike a
fashion worth reinstating for hot evenings in the tropics – in which case the
recipe in question might be worth serving alongside the frozen cucumber.

Iced Parmesan Pyramids.

A favorite savory for the
iced dinners that are so popular a whim at present is iced Parmesan pyramids.
Roll thin some puff paste, cut in neat squares, and bake in a quick oven. Whip
some cream to a stiff froth, flavor with a little cayenne, white pepper, salt
and Parmesan cheese to taste; when the squares are cold, pile them with the
cream, and place over ice before serving.